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Vol. 80/No. 5 February 8, 2016
Australian literacy program based on Cuban example
Militant/Joanne Kuniansky
SYDNEY — “We are always ready to help,” said Cuban literacy teacher José
Chala Leblanch, above right, Jan. 8 as he was welcomed back to
Australia. “That’s what Cuba has been doing the last 50 years, and in
return we have solidarity everywhere.”
Chala pioneered the “Yes I Can” Aboriginal adult literacy program in the
outback town of Wilcannia in 2012. He has returned as an adviser for the
expansion of the program, organized by the Literacy for Life Foundation
in Brewarrina, 600 miles northwest of Sydney.
The effort draws on the experience of the Cuban Revolution’s successful
literacy campaign in 1961, as well as the Cuban program developed in
Grenada during the revolution there in the early 1980s. “It expands
people’s minds,” Chala said. One student told him it was “the best thing
that happened to his community.” Participants gain confidence, he added,
and “want to talk politics at 3 a.m. in the morning!”
The success of “Yes I Can” where government courses have failed to
improve literacy is due to the way it is organized with the involvement
of the Aboriginal community. “You have to listen and learn,” the Cuban
teacher said. “Every community is different.”
In Brewarrina, where more than two-thirds of the 1,500 residents are
Aboriginal, there is high unemployment, so one of the next steps is
preparing students to get jobs.
The informal gathering of 50 people, in a small room at a bar here, was
hosted by the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society.
— LINDA HARRIS
Related articles:
Prison labor is a window into workings of capitalism
Cuban 5: ‘In US prisons they aim to dehumanize you; in Cuba a prisoner
is another human being’
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